It really does boil down to those two words – Sprint Sucks.

Having been a customer of theirs since about 1998, I expect a bit
more than an absolute incapability of taking care of their
customers. Last night, my data service stopped working. I didn’t
think anything of it since I’m somewhat used to random errors. This
morning, I didn’t really notice when the data service still wasn’t
working. Since I was at my desk all day, I didn’t even notice when I
never got a call on my cell phone all day. On the way home, I picked
up my phone to call the wife and tell her I was on my way.

“Your account cannot be validated. If you are a Sprint customer,
please contact Sprint Customer Care by dialing *2 from your Sprint
phone.”

WTF??

I immediately dialed my trusty “Sprint Customer Care” representative
by dialing *2.

“We have detected that a free upgrade to your account is required in
order to complete your request. This will take up to one minute.
Please stand by while we process your request.”

Waiting…..Waiting….Waiting….All Done.

SWEET! Maybe that fixed it! They try to connect me to *2 – DROPPED
CALL.

I call back. Same scenario. Waiting….Waiting….now I’m connected
to *2. DROPPED CALL.

Let’s try it one more time. After waiting 10 minutes, this time I
get through the upgrade and now I’m on hold. I get someone who says
she can fix it. She calls me back at my home phone so we can “do
some diagnostics.” I remove the battery, try it again. No dice.
She puts me on hold while she connects me with Technical Support.
After 18 minutes I get hung up on. Grrrrrreeeeeaaaaat.

Since they have my home phone number, I figure they might actually
call me back. Um. Yeah, right.

So, about 15 minutes later, I call back. I get some genius named
“Lucy” who sounds like she’s in Bangalore or somewhere similar. I
explain the situation and am instructed to wait on hold while she
connects me with technical support. I tell her about getting hung up
on last time and she says it won’t happen again. Sure enough, 5
minutes into waiting on hold, I get dropped again. GEEEEZZZZ!!

Several hours go by and I try calling back again. I get through the
“free upgrade” business and wait on hold for a Sprint Customer Care
rep. Nine minutes and twenty-five seconds later, I get dropped
again. Now I’m starting to take this personally.

I call back again (is anyone keeping count yet!?) and try it yet
another time. This time, after about 8 minutes, I make it through to
Enrique. I explain my plight, frustration, and agitation with their
entire company and he apologize profusely (I’d swear they spend the
entire first week of Sprint training teaching folks how to apologize
for their ineptitude). Enrique does a bit of research and comes back
to tell me that I had requested a replacement phone on my account
yesterday and therefore they disabled my original account. Huh? I
don’t think so. I tell him that I haven’t called Sprint since the
last time they screwed up my account for no reason about 3 months ago
and that I have *not* requested a replacement phone.

Enrique, the most intelligent person I’ve spoken to at Sprint so far,
tries unsuccessfully to tell my phone to regain control of its
number. He has to upgrade me to technical support. I beg Enrique to
please not hang up on my like his colleages have 3 times now. He
assures me he won’t hang up on me. After about 8 minutes on hold,
Enrique comes back with some guy who must be a friend to Lucy. He
says he has researched my account and that the replacement request
that was submitted has caused some problems. He has reset all of the
widgets and gadgets and my account should be 100% correct in the next
4 hours. I’m supposed to leave it on and “just wait it out” and that
it will work as soon as the 4 hours passes. I repeat what he has
just told me to verify that I won’t have to call again and just as he
says “If you have any problems after 4 hours, please give us a
ca……..” Silence. I was hung up on for the fourth time today.

So, my dear friends at Sprint. Will you please reach behind you with
both hands, grab firmly, and pull your head out? I’m getting pretty
sick and tired of your shenanigans, incompetence, and utter disdain
for your customers.